eToro: Who Doesn't Want A little Social Mixed With Commodities Trading?

If you’re not into trading currencies and commodities (who isn’t?), you may not know much about eToro. We first covered them in 2007 when they launched with the somewhat dubious goal of making commodities trading “fun.” But since then they’ve come a long way: users have traded over $100 billion on eToro to date and the company has raised over $10 million in capital. What’s not fun about that?

But now eToro is even “funner.” The company announced its new OpenBook platform today – think Twitter or Foursquare for trades. Users publish their real world commodities trades on the platform. Other users can view their trading history and then choose to follow those users. Or, with the click of a button, duplicate the trade.

This stuff seems absurd, but StockTwits has shows how well it works for stock trades. In fact, eToro and StockTwits are so similar in their approach, it’s no wonder that StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon is also an investor in eToro.

eToro is a good way for people to learn about the commodities trading business, starting off with fake cash or with very small trades. And it’s also clearly attracting higher profile traders who want to talk about what they do, and share with others.